


Time

by Puimoo



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:35:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25658284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puimoo/pseuds/Puimoo
Summary: Grell ponders how Ronald died.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11
Collections: Parallels Fanworks Exchange 2020





	Time

Grell wonders sometimes, where Ronald’s story ends. He sees a boy (a pretty and somewhat abrasive boy, but one who still sings with the sallows of youth), who dresses up in death but keeps time still in life, forever tied to a watch that is just as pretty and just as abrasive.

Grell is wise, and beautiful, and clever. Clearly. But even a fool (and Grell knows a fair few of those as well) would miss the tightly wound connection Ronald has to time, eyes always straying to a wrist watch that stopped working at the exact same moment Ronald’s heart did.

This isn’t a place where you can spin time to your whim - only craziness lies there (not that Grell knows anything about crazy, as he dips his nails into blood red polish, blows airily on them even as the liquid drips, drips, drips down onto the carpet.) Time usually stops existing as a plausible escape or construct in the fourth or fifth year here.

Ronald holds onto it still like a lifeline, a rope.

A noose.

And, really. Dying once is hard enough as it is (although some naturally do it more beautifully than others). 

Grell should ask him, one day. Dear Ronald can be occasionally defensive (Grell has no idea why, Grell has always been such a nice mentor to him), but he tends towards obedience when just the right buttons are pushed.

Grell has always liked buttons.

Yes, one day. When the moment is right. Grell is so good at picking those moments.

“What the hell? Why are you asking me this right now?” Ronald explodes, eyes wide and hair dusted white with bits of wall and scaffolding. Explosions sound around them, and Grell thinks they are really living their best life. Dear Ronald is looking put upon, which is quite frankly his best look and which Grell approves of.

“No time like the present,” he replies gaily, grin widening into razors as something erupts beautifully behind them, the rumble running beneath the floor. Ronald shoots him a look that Grell responds to with such innocence that even an angel would blush,

“I’m surprised you didn’t just look into my file.”

“Really, to think I would breach your privacy like that!” Grell says dramatically, and Ronald looks almost guilty. Really, he should know better. All attempts to delve into Ronald’s files (and there have been a bakers dozen) had been rudely interrupted by the powers that should not be named least Grell accidentally talk them into existence. 

Guilt is so pliable, so _playful_. It means that even here, right in the middle of battlefield that neither of them are truly doing justice, Grell is able to draw pieces of an answer out of his collegue.

“I ran out of time,” Ronald says simply, vaguely robotic. “I thought that someone would, at some point…” Ronald drifts off, with empty eyes and an empty smile. “I counted down the hours, the minutes, the seconds, and still no-one even realised … no-one even cared.” Ronald’s smile grounds itself back into death rather than haunted by life, and as his familiar whirl of a lawnmower roars into being Grell decides that this tidbit is enough for today. “But who has time for that?” Ronald concludes, and then he is leaping and twisting, attacking.

It’s almost unfair that Ronald chooses to leave it there, but Grell has taught him well. There is nothing that cannot be solved by running into battle, and the true tragedy here is that Grell only gets to follow rather than lead the charge.

Grell smirks, big and wide and full of teeth. 

There will be time for all that later.


End file.
